Missions Stories

When Tom entered Harvard University in 1991, his plans for a lucrative career in corporate law were as stable and secure as his parents had always dreamed. Not surprisingly, he excelled. Then, slowly, Tom started to realize what he wanted.

“I don’t think I’d ever thought about a poor person.” As a senior from the University of Illinois at Urbana 96, Marie Koch sat in the auditorium spellbound by the short video on the screen about the poor. “It was haunting,” she said.

Through their excruciating pain, through the weight of their trauma, they don’t resent the call to suffer that God has put upon their shoulders but rather welcome it. They celebrate it, and they feel honored by it. These refugees are indeed proudly part of the “nation of the cross.”

Without even knowing you, Daniel Paredes knows what God’s will for your life is. “The context of those questions [about God’s will] can look different for different people,” he said, “but for Christians, the main answer is always the same, and that’s to go and make disciples.”

For a couple of years now, I’ve been fascinated by the flight pattern of migrating birds. It amazes me how they are in tune with the change of seasons and know exactly when to begin their miles-long journey.